The business of spying and Business Intelligence

Last week the American news was all abuzz with the arrest of a ring of Russian Suspects' leading "Unremarkable Lives" among Americans in the suburbia. NYT article describes the arrest thus

"On June 27, 2010, 10 people in Yonkers, Boston and northern Virginia were arrested and accused of being part of a Russian espionage ring, living under false names and deep cover in a patient scheme to penetrate what one coded message called American "policy making circles." The next day, an 11th accused member of the ring was arrested at an airport in Cyprus while trying to leave for Budapest. . . The arrests were the result of an F.B.I. investigation that began at least seven years ago."

The media a field day, all the more since the story had all ingredients of a racy spy novel “A ring of 10 Russian moles right out of a Cold War spy novel was smashed yesterday - and among those busted was a flame-haired, 007- worthy beauty who flitted from high-profile parties to top-secret meetings around Manhattan.” Including an international ring to it (Russin spies using a British Passport in America!)

In an ironic twist, the American Central Intelligence Agency was celebrating 4th of July with a remembrance of Agency U-2 Pilots: Hervey Stockman “On July 4, 1956, Hervey Stockman piloted a U-2 through the skies over the Soviet Union (re: Front page of CIA website). I was intrigued by the existence of Foreign Agents Registration Act, "The Foreign Agents Registration Act is a United States law passed in 1938 requiring that agents representing the interests of foreign powers be properly identified to the American public." I wonder if Mr. Stockman, while spying over Russia had to register with the Russian government as a "Foreign Agent"

Growing up in India, I recall the Indian media having a field day over stories of Pakistani spy rings busted every so often. A saga that continues to this day: A few months ago, media was buzzing with sordid details of the arrest of an Indian diplomat, Madhuri Gupta, accused of spying for Pakistan while stationed in Pakistan. A real cloak-and-dagger if you will.

Switching gears, espionage is very much present in the business world, aided by sophisticated Information Technology and techniques, also called “Business Intelligence.” I remember being fascinated by the story of corporate espionage chronicled in novel The Informant that I read a few years ago. And then, there is the not-so-glamorous Intelligence gathering that we come across in the corporate world. Just a few examples in the software services sector that we regularly encounter:

· Who got the highest share of the bonus this quarter?
· Gathering information on a colleague who might be looking out for a new job . . . and passing on that ‘Intelligence” to your boss
· Getting access to the recommendations of the “Strategy Planning” exercise done by your competitor for the Director/VP that your firm works closely with
· Finding details – financials - of a proposal being submitted by a competing vendor
· The list could go on . . .

international business management: White guys wanted

I heard a small program on China on the radio (NPR) during a recent drive back from work. Later that night, I goggled and read with fascination the article in The Atlantic "Rent A White Guy: Confessions of a Fake Businessman from Beijing" .

In the article, Mitch Moxley, a freelance writer who lives in Beijing, discovers that merely being a White Guy in China, who can dress well in a suite qualifies him to opportunities including being paid to be a fake American businessman.

Many of us in the global workforce know anecdotally that being American, and white is certainly an big pre-qualifier, especially while being considered for certain opportunities. The article went on to reinforce that view.

The article reminded me of many anecdotes from the past, including a (white) British colleague proudly proclaiming how he got a cool tax-free-six-figure consulting gig as a system administrator for a client in the middle-east because: the client wanted to see a “few white guys” onsite even though most of the actual sysadmin work was being done offshore in India.

We would like to think that the world is flattening - even this phrase has a flat ring to it now – and global opportunities are there for the taking, especially for those globally mobile. However, when it comes to international business, Moxley demonstrates that there is an element of reverse-racism that hard to shed.

Ps: the opinions and anecdotes in this blog are just that: personal observations from the trenches. Nothing more.

Other articles, blogs on the topic

• Getting Hired in a Flat World
• Rent a White Guy - LOL and SMH
• Rent-a-white-guy for your Chinese business meeting - Boing Boing
• Rent a White Guy China Digital Times (CDT)
• Markets in Everything: Rent a white guy edition
• Rent a White Guy – Expat - My Telegraph

Lessons from BP’s Little People . . . or is it the small people, or the Common Man?

British Petroleum has been in the news so much; with such a great public resentment against them that anything more the BP leadership could do couldn’t perhaps anger Americans more. Or so we thought till BP chairman’s comment about "small people" of the Gulf Coast hit by the oil disaster.

The media and digirati seem to have moved on to other issues but Carl-Henric Svanberg’s clumsy remark about "small people" created more storm in the teacup than it perhaps should have. He did apologize for the remark the same day. And after all, English is not Svanberg’s native tongue.
I guess I cannot make an excuse for the Chairman of BP, especially given the fact that executives of multinationals, even non-native English speakers are increasingly expected to give press conferences in English, and are coached extensively to avoid public gaffe, especially of the nature in discussion.

The fact of the matter is that there is hardly one version of English spoken globally. There is the queen’s English, with versions in Great Britain itself, the Australian and American English, with native idioms, expressions and even phrases. And then there is the English which Indians learn to speak (ref my earlier blog post). Could “Little People” have been a native expression translated by Mr. Svanberg? Kind of like “the common man,” a term that is prevelant in India and south Asia.

Case in point, an Indian CEO, say of an offshoring services firm, during an interview on the impact of sourcing might make a benign remark like “the common man in Redmond won’t be impacted by Big blue’s sourcing strategy.” Wonder what the American or British media would make of this? And would the expression also create a furor for being Politically In-correct?

Ps: for the feminists in the audience, the term Common Man was probably coined much before we did away with “Man” to more PC “Person”

Blogs on the topic
* BP Chairman's Unfortunate Choice of Words: Once Again the Media Fanned
* BP: 'Small People' Matter To Us, Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg Says
* NYT: Small People
* Gulf oil spill: Obama and BP caring for the 'small people'
* BP -- 'Small People' Speech Pisses Off Little People
* Small People by BP Angers Gulf Residents

Reviewing the book Leaving India and the question “Where are you from?”

I was intrigued by the topical title of the book, Leaving India, a copy of which I picked up while traveling to Bangalore recently. The book, while readable did not exactly “keep me up late into the night” as Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s blurb on the jacket promises. It is a mix of academic and theoretical observations peppered with stories and anecdotes. I finished reading it on the 14-plus hour plane ride back to San Francisco.

Minal Hajratwala has done a great job of traveling, interviewing and capturing the immigration saga of her extended family spanning over a century. The book is primarily about migrants of the Gujarati Khatri community that the author belongs to. By selecting her extended family for her research, Hajratwala has been able to focus on an otherwise eclectic topic of immigration.

She draws from her personal experiences, a childhood in New Zealand and Michigan. There is a tinge of bitterness about her childhood, partly attributable to her experiences in racially charged Michigan of the seventies.

One of the most interesting passages in the book is when Hajratwala examines the question “Where are you from?” (P 339).

This is a question NRIs, ABCDs and Indian Immigrants get asked a lot; lot more than we care to admit!

Many a times, the question is just an ice-breaker, like when you are asked “Where are you from?” and you reply “India,” after which the Caucasian woman may ask “which part of India?” . . . and if you say “Bangalore” she might start off with “I was in India a few years ago with my husband/friend, we traveled to Agra and Jaipur”

Now, if like me, you happen to be an NRI, and when asked the question, you answer “I am from Phoenix, or Here, San Francisco,” you might hear Oh?”

And just as Hajratwala reflects in her book “". . .and in her voice you might hear a faint rise: disbelief, wonder, a set of questions she does not ask” . .. “I am thinking of all the times I have faced this question – dozens? Hundreds? – and how, even now, I feel I must defend or explain my answer . . . but none of these would give a clue to either ethnicity or character”

Touché, Ms Hajratwala, well put!

Ps: My Book review on Amazon.com
Washington Post's review of the book

Are all Immigrants with military background a suspect?

In my previous blog post, I mused about how the renewed threat of terrorism in the west is impacting innocuous globe trotters, businesses and immigration. There is another angle that seems to be picked up by the Indian media this week: former and serving members of Indian security agencies, defense service, border guards and others seem to be routinely denied visas by Canadian Embassy in India.

The fact is most western countries including US, Canada and European countries routinely deny visas to citizen of ‘third world’ and developing countries on grounds they could be prospective immigrants who (probably) will overstay their legal visas if granted. Many applicants have little recourse but to hire dubious ‘visa consultants’ or middlemen who advertise immigration services in classifieds of newspapers across south Asia. Most such cases of visa rejection don’t make news: a visa, even visitor’s or business visa to the US is still a coveted document!

The case of Indian veterans being denied visas to Canada is intriguing. The reason given by Canadian embassy for rejection is on grounds that they had served in a "sensitive location" of Jammu and Kashmir and elsewhere. While talking up the issue in media, Indian bureaucrats seem to be treading on thin ice.

Questions that still go unanswered

• Was the denial of visas to Indian veterans of faux paus by an overzealous visa official or a Canadian government policy of equating Indian Army and border guards with Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps or north Korean army that were cited as axis of evil?


• Does a country (A) have a right to ask another sovereign nation (B) to reconsider visa applications to citizen of Country A? Media reports on retaliation “One way to retaliate would be to deny visas to Canadian officials who go to Afghanistan via India, said highly-placed sources.”


• If we go with the vague presumption that Indian military personnel and veterans who had served in "sensitive locations" are somehow “guilty” and “not worthy” of visas to western nations, one would have to apply the same argument to veterans of most other nations. Citizen from countries that have mandatory military service wouldn’t be able to receive visas from western countries . . .

Prospective Immigrants Presumed Guilty until proven innocent

Presumption of innocence - being considered innocent unless proven guilty - is a legal right recognized by most modern societies, a fact those of us living in the west take for granted. Not so when it comes to presumption innocence of immigrants.

One can say that in a perverse kind of way, prospective terrorists and fundamentalists are wreaking havoc in the lives of global citizen, guest workers, temporary workers and immigrants. Just a couple of facts from recent times:

* Path to citizenship and legal permanent residence is get more arduous as those applying for naturalization and permanent residence in western countries including the US, Canada, UK, Europe and elsewhere – are increasingly being “presumed guilty” unless they and the respective security agencies – FBI, CIA, RCMP, Scotland Yard et al - can prove otherwise. Implication of this is clear: tighter and more rigorous scrutiny and background checks, leading to backlog and waiting time for majority of (innocent) applicants while authorities try to scan for ‘prospective’ black sheep.

* Additional fingerprinting, bio-metric checks, secondary inspections and other scrutiny while crossing international borders. In the mid-nineties, when I began my career as a global tech-worker, my colleagues and I could pack our bags, get a confirmed booking, land in host countries and walk through immigration with cursory checks, as long as we had a valid visa and passport. I guess those were innocent times. Now, the frisking and scrutiny begins at the point of departure. Airports resemble fortresses with menacing armed guards, and even airlines’ security consider us a threat unless they are satisfied we are not. Nobody, not even public persona are spared the ordeal of (excessive?) scrutiny and checks. Remember how Indians were incensed when their beloved VIP’s former President Abdul Kalam and Shahrukh Khan were subject to search and scrutiny during international travel a few months ago? Frequent glob-totting executives, including self, realize that the few strories reported in the media are just tip of the iceberg!

The technologist in me sometimes muses on how newer, maturing technologies including e-passports, national biometric ID cards, interlinking national and international security databases are just a few examples of technologies that could make life simpler for prospective immigrants, guest workers and travelers. However, as with adoption of most new technologies in public realm, broad political support is necessary. Some in the west, fearing additional intrusion of Orwellian Big-Brother are opposing wider adoption of tools and modern technologies that could perhaps mitigate the annoyance innocent immigrants and global travelers face.

One can almost be certain that recent incidents in the west, including Jihad Jane, the saga of Naturalized Terror suspect etc will only make life a bit harder for global citizen.

How one wishes one could move back to more innocent times?!

Ethics and Globalization of Businesses: Business Government and Society 101

Harvard University recently Prof. Nitin Nohria as dean of its influential Business School. Prof. Nohria has been active in promoting business ethics, a value that seems more relevant now than at any other time in the past. This move by a premier business school is timely. There is an urgent need for business leaders to learn to focus on crisis management and to reflect on their values, ethics and transparency. Business, Government and Society 101, along with fundamentals of ethics and transparency is (or should be) required reading for future business leaders. Case in point is the automotive value chain where crisis after crisis seems to be playing out in the global circus



A year after major auto makers in America went bankrupt, prompting the federal government to step in and bail them out, Toyota was making headlines with runaway cars and quality problems. This month Toyota ceded its spot on national headlines to BP.

Managing crisis while in a global media spotlight is not an enviable task for any executive. A few facts, based we are seeing and reading in the media:
* BP says it will pay for Gulf spill's cleanup. It is certainly pulling all the stops in crisis management. Too bad the attempt to use the oil containment box technology failed this week, right in front of us and the global media
* The US Government and most other major oil companies are pooling in resources, technologies and brainpower to attempt a solution. It is a matter of time, but till then we will continue to watch the drama unfold

Observing the drama in the Automotive industry unfold, I began reflecting on how technocrats in my industry - the offshoring tech sector - got a first-hand lesson in Business Government and Society during the restructure of offshoring giant Satyam after the accounting scandal a couple of years ago. A few key lessons in crisis that could apply in most scenarios:

• Start with a clean mea culpa during the first 72 hours. There is nothing the media and public loath more than the ‘big ugly faceless corporation.’ If you are at fault, the first thing your senior executive should do is to say ‘I am sorry’


• Managing the media: We live in a 24 X 7 world in which the media, aided by web 2.0 technologies bring information to consumers round the clock. One cannot ‘manage’ the media without participating in it. Of course the question executives may ask themselves: “Should I shut up and focus on the efforts or address the impact of political and media onslaught?” Surely large companies facing crisis should try and address the diverging goals of stakeholders. With billions of dollars and access to a wide spectrum of experts, they should also do more than one thing at once: share information with media, bloggers and public WHILE fixing the problem.


• Government is a key stakeholder, and can be an ally. Government is also composed of politicians, whith their vested interests, lobbies and political constituencies. Managing expectations of governments – Federal, state, local – is as important as managing media and public perception during a crisis.

Bottomline: Though it is too soon for us to be looking for lessons in the current crisis, managers of tomorrow are certainly looking to learn their way out of disasters